Coneflowers, (Echinacea), Butterfly Pentas, Agastache, Jacobina, Yarrow, Pink-flower Indigo. I planted Angelonias last year and they all came back this year. Mexican bush sage blooms spring and fall. Country Girl Chrysanthemums bloom in the fall. They look like light pink daisies. Cosmos are also great, but they're late spring bloomers. Same with larkspur in case you're making a list for next year.

I live year round in an 1860's New England farmhouse that when we bought it had no insulation, so I can fully identify with your problem. We open the downstairs and bedroom windows and run a fan in the upstairs bathroom that blows outward. This pulls air in downstairs and upstairs and exhausts it through the bathroom. When it is really hot, we close the door to the stairwell so that all the air gets sucked in through the bedrooms. You really have two issues: the bedrooms need to be cooled, but so does the attic so that heat isn't radiating from the attic to the bedrooms. I would use the attic fan in one of the attic windows, but keep the hatch closed. That will cool the attic by pulling in air from one end and pushing it out the other, and then follow Camlan's advice to cool the bedrooms. In the long run it will help keep the house cool in the summer if you insulate the attic from the upstairs. This can be done much more easily than window replacement, either with the roll out pink stuff or with blown in cellulose insulation (the places that sell cellulose insulation loan or rent the blower also.) Be sure to wear respiratory masks and long sleeves and pants, so it is better to do in cool weather.

Clean everything. No personal photos at all be it your pets, your family or your vacation shots, unless they are especially scenic and used as a large artwork piece. Clean again. Only 1-2 pieces of art displayed per room, and it should be of neutral content. Clean again. Nothing religious or racial or nude. Clean again. Pack up and store everything that you aren't currently using, including out of season clothes, unused small appliances, sports gear or gardening equipment. Clean again. Paint fresh neutral colors and clean or replace the carpet. These are the absolute minimum basics to sell. Then look at what's there and stage it. Decluttering and depersonalizing isn't staging. Staging is using storytelling accessories to create an inviting open ended invitation that welcomes visitors and turns them into buyers. Plants, candles, books, throws, pillows, and towels are all staging accessories that are added to the clean and uncluttered basic layer that you've created.

I have been without a kitchen for 5 months already, and we have been lucky because it really has not been bad at all. I live in a very old house, and we had a small sitting room at the top of our stairs on the second floor, where we had built in bookcases. It is not really a separate room, per se. It is almost like a very wide hallway between all the bedrooms, and it has a fireplace and two bright windows, and built in floor to ceiling bookcases. So we moved the loveseat out from that small area, and it was just big enough for a kitchen table. We rearranged the books to clear up a couple of shelves for paper plates, cereal, etc. We also used the fireplace mantel for storage. We cleared an area at the top of the stairs for a small refrigerator, and a small cabinet that had been in the basement. We still have our full size fridge/freezer downstairs, but wanted a small fridge nearby for essentials. We put a microwave and a two burner unit on the top of the cabinet. The toaster is on the bookcase. The only thing we really miss a LOT is the sink. So we mostly use paper everything, and wash what we must in our bathroom sinks, which are too small. It is a pain. I highly recommend finding a place to set up your kitchen table somewhere in the house, even if it is in the basement. I think we would be going crazy if we had to eat on coffee tables, etc. And if you can set up far away from where the work is being done, as we did, that is even better. We stored our kitchen stuff mostly in brown boxes in our dining room and in another small parlour on the first floor. We shoved a lot of stuff into our china cabinet, too. We can access things if we need to. And we can still eat at our dining room table if we have a lot of people over. It has not been that big a deal at all. My house looks like hell, but we can cook almost anything we need to between the burners, microwave and toaster oven. We can still sit at the table in a civilized way. In fact, I'm going to miss having my kitchen on the same floor as my bedroom. It is so much easier getting ready for work in the morning, not running up and down the stairs all the time. Don't forget to keep plastic containers handy, and real knives, and a few large bowls. Aluminum foil and plastic bags also. I never dreamed it would be five months later with no kitchen, and I'm very glad we went through the trouble of moving furniture around to accommodate an almost real kitchen.